


The Floor, It Needs Sweeping

by badboy_fangirl



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-29
Updated: 2011-12-29
Packaged: 2017-10-28 10:02:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/306707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badboy_fangirl/pseuds/badboy_fangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you've only ever loved two women in your whole 168 years, doesn't it make sense that you'd kill one of them to preserve the other?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Floor, It Needs Sweeping

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers through 2x19 "Klaus," AU from there. Auction fic for waltzmatildah based on her prompts of Damon or Elena having to exterminate Katherine and the song "It Ends Tonight" by the All-American Rejects. Opening quote lifted from the song. And all the rest of the fic? Beta'd by the wonderful linsell_farm.

  
_Your subtleties, they strangle me, I can't explain myself at all.  
And all the wants, and all the needs, all I don't want to need at all._   


 

 _1992 - Seattle, Washington_

The bar he chose is in downtown Seattle. It's crowded, filled with college-age kids and wannabe grungers, all clothed in flannel shirts, all in need of hair washing.

Damon smirks when "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is followed by Michael Bolton's "When a Man Loves a Woman" on the jukebox—until he sees his brother move away from the brightly lit appliance. He's wearing his hair long, the straggly tresses brushing at the tops of his shoulders, and he too has the flannel shirt and jeans thing going on; Damon can't bring himself to adopt anything faddish or trendy (though he likes top-rated designers). If he's learned anything during his 150 years on this planet, it's that fads are purely for people to take pictures of now and look back upon with horror and head-shaking.

But see, Stefan? He just wants to be like them so much, he probably adopts every current trend in the hopes it will make him human.

Damon would never waste time, thought, or energy on such stupidity. Nothing will make him anything different than he is. There's no point in dwelling on it.

He lifts his scotch to his lips, drinking slowly, methodically eyeing the blonde co-ed in the corner. She's bubbly and perky (no bra), and quite possibly the stupidest girl in the room with her dancing-on-the-bar and her loud wolf-whistling when some guy walks in and her group of friends convinces her it's _the_ Kurt Cobain.

Stefan slides into the booth next to him, a beer in his hand. "I can't keep doing this," he says.

Damon tosses him a glance. He knows, they've had this conversation on a weekly basis for the last three months, and Damon keeps waiting for Stefan to walk away and not come back. They've been through this over the years, many times, coming back together for short spans of time when Stefan thinks he can deal with Damon, _change_ Damon, but it always boils down to this.

Stefan can't condone murder, and though lots of times Damon likes to seduce, feed, and erase because it's less messy, almost always, he gets to some proverbial ceiling and killing someone is the only outlet left.

Especially when he's with Stefan for too long, because his brother is an ever-present reminder of who _isn't_ there.

"Keep selling it to me, Stef. I'll believe you when I see the back of you."

Stefan tips the bottle up, draining the last of his Sam Adams. "Why can't you let it go, Damon? It's been over a hundred years."

"Why did you choose this song?" Damon asks, pointing a finger up into the air, indicating the over-sung lyrics permeating the air around them. _When a man loves a woman, deep down in his soul, she can bring him such misery. If she plays him for a fool, he's the last one to know..._

"When you're over it, I'll get over it," Damon says to Stefan's silence

Stefan gets up and leaves. Damon figures he won't see him again, not here anyway. Their next meeting will be years down the line, but he knows they will cross paths again. If you don't kill the thing that torments you, eventually you just have to find it again and make sure it still torments you.

The cute blonde across the room approaches the bar and then gasps out loud when Damon is suddenly by her side, offering to buy her a drink.

Her blood makes him strong, despite the high alcohol content of it, and he leaves her body in the woods outside the city limits. He knows some wild animal will take care of what's left, but he doesn't really care what happens to her, or how it makes the people who find her feel. Washington's in his rearview.

The things he carries with him never change.

 

 

 _1864 - Mystic Falls, Virginia_

She watches them arguing from the mouth of the stable. They are too far away; even her sensitive ears cannot pick up the words on the wind, but she knows Damon's face as well as her own by now. He is belligerent with his father, but at the same time, so deeply wounded, she cannot imagine what Giuseppe has just said.

His eldest son stumbles back from him and then turns away, clutching at his stomach as though he feels sickly.

One of the servants approaches her to take the horse she had been riding for grooming. She politely thanks him and then starts to walk back to the house. Stefan is there, happy to see her, rushing down the steps to escort her back into the house, and though she feigns interest in him and his words, she is really thinking of Damon.

Whatever has happened between him and his father will be the moment she can gain him for her own. He already knows her secret, but it is time to let him in on more of the plan. With his help, she will seal her existence away into a tomb of no regrets.

She will finally be safe, forever.

 

++

 

As often as possible—usually each night, they meet somewhere. This time, Katherine sends Emily to summon him to her room after everyone has retired for the evening.

She knows he is still strongly affected by whatever happened with his father because when he comes into her room, he's more aggressive than he's ever been, and they are unable to get all of her clothes off before he has spent himself inside her. He pants desperately against her throat, and Katherine cannot quite identify the emotion spiraling within her chest.

She thinks perhaps she pities him.

With her hand in the sweaty hair at the nape of his neck, she asks, "What happened today with your father?"

Damon lifts his head, his beautiful eyes fleetingly meeting hers before he disengages from her. He pulls the petticoat off he had not yet removed from her body and moves away from her, throwing the billowing cloth over the partition in the corner of the room.

He is unconsciously naked, his own clothes haphazardly scattered across the floor, but he doesn't return to join her on the bed. He stands at the window, leaning his arms against the frame to look out into the darkness over the remnants of the tobacco fields. Her influence is so vividly upon him, because only weeks ago he would quickly cover himself after a coupling, his cheeks a glorious shade of pink as she inspected his naturally athletic and beautiful form.

"I told him I will not return to my regiment. He was very disapproving."

Katherine restrains a laugh. She loves his penchant for understatement.

"Is that all?" she asks, and Damon looks at her over his shoulder. That same pain she had been able to see at such a distance is upon his face again. She climbs from the bed and goes to his side, wrapping her arms around his middle. "Damon, I will have to leave here, eventually. A vampire cannot stay in any one place too long. And when I leave, I want you to come with me."

He lowers an arm to wrap it around her shoulders. "You must know by now I will only be happy if I can be with you."

His earnestness sometimes disarms her. She is used to manipulating the affections of men so easily—she has done it for more than 400 years—but his frank devotion is so sincere it often takes the breath from her lungs. She hides it well, however. "Of course, and I, too, can only be happy as such, darling. But, I thought it would pain you to leave your father forever. And of course, Stefan..."

"I would not care if I never saw that man ever again," he says fiercely. "But you are right," he says, his voice growing softer. "Stefan...it would bring me pain to leave him."

Katherine had hoped for this response. "He can come along," she says, rubbing her hand down the sleek expanse of his torso in a caress meant to comfort and incite. He knows Stefan fancies her, but he has no idea that she's been dallying with both brothers, almost from the outset.

Damon shakes his head sadly. "Stefan will never agree to become a vampire, Katherine."

Smiling, she says soothingly, "There are ways around it."

His hand carefully traces the curve of her naked bottom, and she can feel his arousal growing as he turns into her. It gently prods her in the stomach, and she can see that it still embarrasses him slightly. She touches his face. "I can be very convincing, can I not?" she asks demurely. "I will get him to agree. Just leave it to me."

He hugs her, his arms wrapping tightly around her. "Katherine," he whispers, and the sudden pain in his constrained whisper alarms her. Before she can say anything, he blurts, "My father is...not my father."

She wants to look into his face, but he is holding her too closely for that, so she slides her hands up his back softly and asks, "What?"

"When we argued earlier," he says, and now she can feel his tears against her neck. She realizes his embarrassment has nothing to do with his bodily reaction to her, but instead to the emotion welling up within him at this big revelation. "He said, _no son of mine would desert the Confederacy in her hour of need!_ I tried to explain how it is a lost cause, and I can see no sense in going back to my death, and then he just started to scream _no son of mine, no son of mine_ and I finally understood. He was not disowning me, he was telling me why he has always hated me. I have heard whispers of this sort of thing for years amongst the servants, but I never thought..."

Katherine holds him closer, crooning love words in his ear. His evident heartbreak is something even she does not have to pretend touches her.

She remembers a young, brash, wildly-in-love girl who carried the child of a man who would not marry her, but whom she would have walked to the ends of the earth for. That was the first time love cost her nearly everything, but it would not be the last.

She thinks perhaps she might have had a few things in common with Mrs. Salvatore, had she ever had the opportunity to meet her.

"I'm sorry," he chokes out, his tears still falling against her throat. Men do not cry, not in the presence of anyone, and his humiliation is complete with his emotional breakdown.

She tells him it is all right and then she kisses the skin beneath her lips, working her way up his neck to his ear. She nibbles his earlobe and when he shudders in her arms, she gently guides him back to the bed, and makes him briefly forget in the only way she knows how. As she controls the pace from atop him, she stops trying to work it out in her mind. If she can manage it, both Salvatores will go with her when she leaves this town.

She wants them both; why shouldn't she have them both?

 

 _2009 - Mystic Falls, Virginia_

Damon stops to get a snack before he hits the city limits. The car careens around on the foggy road as his body flies through the air. When he's feeling a little dramatic, he likes to let the car actually hit him. Being shrouded in the mist always makes for a nice piercing scream when they see him too late to avoid him; it makes him feel alive.

You know, before he kills people.

It's an irony only he can enjoy.

He slings the bodies to the side of the road, not even worrying about covering his tracks. He's not coming home to make nice with the denizens of this little burg. He's come here to settle an old score, and to help the woman he loves reclaim her existence.

He hopes the dead bodies put the fear of God into them, because that's the fucking point. They're all going to be terrified of him and her, and the host of vampires that will be released from the tomb in a few weeks' time.

He just needs to get into the Lockwood Mansion, get his crystal, find a willing witch (and _make_ her willing if need be, one last seduction for the cause), and wait for the comet to set everything into motion.

Or at least, that's the plan, until he sees his brother going into the Salvatore Boarding House. What in the world is Stefan doing here?

His brother can't possibly know—Damon got that information from Emily Bennett just before she died, and he's never told another living being that would have ever had any contact with Stefan.

Besides, Stefan never loved Katherine like he did (does). He doubts very much that his brother would have any desire to get her out of the tomb, even if he knew about it.

That is, until he sees who his brother is stalking ever so carefully around the streets of Mystic Falls. Damon follows him on September 8th, three days after he's arrived in town and almost can't restrain himself from going into the high school after him and staking him right through the heart.

What person goes back to high school when they're a 160+ years old?

Only Stefan.

Because, apparently, Katherine has a body double.

Unable to help himself, he waits for school to get out, and then he follows her to the cemetery. She's definitely _not_ Katherine; subtle differences make him positive she's not a vampire who is also pretending to be human—he can't imagine Katherine ever conforming to that degree, even if she has been desiccating for 145 years. He doesn't know much about genetics and what he knows of doppelgangers he's learned about in movies, but it's an oddity that piques his curiosity.

He thinks about killing her—he's hungry, and she's beautiful, always a good sign of tasty blood, but then he sees Stefan, and it finally registers. His brother's gone back to school for this girl—to know her, to plant himself in her path.

He smiles as he leaves them awkwardly flirting in the cemetery. (Her name is _Elena_ ). This is going to be so much more fun than he initially anticipated. He'll get Katherine out of the tomb, and he'll torment the shit out of Stefan one last time. Then he'll stake him before he and Katherine set out for parts unknown. And finally everything that should have happened in 1864 will be accomplished.

 

 

 _1864 - Mystic Falls, Virginia_

Katherine carefully compels Stefan every day on two issues: one, the drinking of her blood, and two, to be sure to never reveal to Damon the depth of their relationship.

Once she has turned them, and their blood thirst is raging, it won't be hard to talk them into sharing her, she is certain. They will become the hedonistic little men she has been slowly cultivating, and she will stop finding Damon somewhat insufferable with his need for her, and Stefan will stop all the propriety. Sometimes his analytical take on their relationship bordered on bothersome. The previous evening, he'd told her he was going to speak to his father about them getting married. She knocked that thought right out of his head as she fed him her blood because she does not need any more of Giuseppe's attention. He already looks at her suspiciously and the animosity between him and Damon grows every day.

She is truly afraid that Damon will snap, unable to hold in all the plans they've made in an effort to put his father in his place. She would compel him, but knows he needs to hold on to that anger so that when the time comes, he will kill his father. Stefan could never do that, and she needs them all in place on the night of the escape.

(It served no one that Damon's passion sometimes bordered on lunacy, and that Stefan thought he could reason his way out of any situation.)

Damon storms into her room one day without invitation or any sense of discretion. "Are you bedding my brother?" he demands, and Katherine motions to Emily to hurry and close the door.

"What? Damon, no!" she cries, trying to look as offended as possible. "What would even make you think that?"

He wavers, and the uncertainty in his expression is her only hope. "He just said something—"

She takes his face in her hands. "You are my lover, only you," she whispers, and then she kisses him for good measure.

(She was once like this, cajoled and convinced by well place gestures of affection. She can't feel bad about it, not now, when she's worked so hard to make sure this goes off without any complications. She's run for too long, and she's tired of it. She just wants her own life, the real one she's dreamt of with no rules and no dark shadows hovering somewhere behind her.)

His hands imitate hers, and his grip on her face is a little too tight. She feels a thrilling sense of danger as their lips slip apart, and she imagines Damon as a vampire. She might find that she enjoys him even more in that state, and that her fondness for him could exceed her love for Stefan. "I do not want Stefan to come with us," he says, and the instability that she has perceived in him rages in his eyes. "It will just be me that you take with you. _Only me_."

Katherine nods, and it is only later that she realizes she was not lying to him when she makes the promise. "Only you, yes." (Luckily she has no problem breaking her word, even when she means it.)

He takes her then, his ferociousness finally outweighing his need to handle her like spun glass. Katherine's orgasm rips through her, burning away any lasting tenderness.

Damon will become her little monster, and he'll be compliant with whatever she wants. Bringing Stefan along will cause the most delicious strife, and she relishes it.

Besides, if she is being completely honest, she wants to see Stefan in just this state—driven mad by his love for her. If Stefan can make Damon react that way, undoubtedly Damon can make Stefan react the same.

She kisses him gently as he leaves her room a while later. It's going to be a very exciting moment when they finally know the truth.

 

 

 _2010 - Mystic Falls, Virginia_

In the years leading up to rescuing Katherine from the tomb, there had never been anyone else. There had been plenty of warm bodies (and cold dead ones too), but they only filled a need, a hunger and a thirst, a momentary distraction to what would be the ultimate reunion.

In the minutes following the inexplicably (but not really) empty tomb, there is only Elena, calling his name, pulling him from the depths of desiccation, and then holding him in her arms.

In the weeks after that comes the realization that he lives because of her, not just because of Atlanta, or the Tomb, or Founder's Day.

The irony is that she looks just like Katherine, but she's the only exception. She's the only one who could mean more, matter more, do nothing but be who she is and rock his world.

So when the time comes, he kills Katherine without even blinking, because he is not going to let that little bitch get in his way again, or do anything to harm Elena.

It happens in the middle of the Sacrifice when she makes herself known at just the right moment. He'd told her she owed him, and he meant it. She serves as the distraction that he and Stefan need for Bonnie to channel her power and for Elijah to make sure that it doesn't kill Elena in the process. He rushes forward, screams her name, and as she attacks Klaus, Damon stakes her.

Then, all hell breaks loose. He falls to the ground, rolling away from Klaus, but something odd is happening to the Original, because his body contorts grossly, his arms and legs bending in the wrong direction. Screams pierce the night air and Damon tries to crawl away, but he feels a sharp, excruciating pain in his thigh and he hears Elena call his name in a desperate way. That scares him more than anything else that's happened during the insanity of the night and he rolls over to see her rushing toward him.

"Damon, no," she cries and her hands grasp his shoulders before skimming over his face and then she lifts them to her mouth, pressing both palms over her lips, as though holding something inside that should never be said aloud.

It's that gesture of complete despair that makes everything click in his brain.

He just got bit by a werewolf.

He's as good as dead.

++

 

Katherine is still "trapped" by Klaus at Alaric's apartment, so when he walks out the door with his witches in tow to perform the Sacrifice, she remains sitting on the tattered sofa within the confines of the apartment.

She's going to wait just a little while, and then she's going to meet Damon in the alley behind the building. She does owe him, and for some reason this time, it feels important to give him the one thing he's asked for. (Demanded, blackmailed, and kept his end of the bargain by making sure that she had enough vervain to only seem compelled and compliant to Klaus's orders.)

He's there, in the blue muscle car that she finds incongruous with the Damon Salvatore she once knew so well. Of course, that pink-cheeked, wide-eyed, desperately-in-love-with-her boy really did die a long time ago.

He became exactly what she envisioned (and so much more sexy), and the game of with holding that he's played perfectly since she arrived in Mystic Falls has made him almost as desirable as his brother. She will always have a weakness for Stefan—her one great flaw, though she never allowed it to fully consume her life—but there are definite moments when Damon's appeal overshadows Stefan's.

Just like in 1864.

She hadn't understood it fully then—because even her kind had their moments of reflection and enlightenment. It had taken her years to see that Damon had reminded her too much of her human self, while Stefan's calm demeanor had been everything she had manufactured herself into. The appeal, and the direction of her affections hadn't been so much a representation of Damon being lesser than Stefan, just her own inability to stand weakness within another being.

(Though she counted on those weaknesses, and her own ability to mine them to her advantage.)

Now, because of her, Damon is strong, and so uncaring of anything except his goal (though she does roll her eyes in regard to the Save Elena Brigade) that he reminds her of herself in a good way. He will do anything to preserve the Doppelganger, just like Katherine did everything she had to preserve her own existence.

As she climbs into the car, where he's waiting, she reaches over to run a hand up his leg. "When this is finished—when we've _saved_ Elena, we're going to settle up, you and me."

He flicks her a glance. "After tonight, we'll be done as far as I'm concerned."

"No," she says confidently, even as he grabs her hand and tosses it away from his body. "I want this Damon Salvatore, and I'm going to have him."

He scoffs.

"You know I always get what I want, Damon."

"Are you really that stupid, Katherine? Do you think I've brought you vervain for the last week because I still _care_?"

She laughs because words that should sting just tickle her. "I have no delusions about where your affections lie, Damon. But I know you're never going to get what you want, so why not have me? You're my second choice, too, why not embrace it?"

He starts the car, but says nothing as the motor purrs beneath them. When she stretches her hand back towards him, he grabs her arm and twists it back, cleanly breaking it. The pain rips through her body and she cries out as he shoves her away. She yanks her arm protectively into her body, feeling the heat that floods the damaged area as the healing process begins.

"You're not my second choice," he snaps. "You're not my third choice, you're not even the choice I would make if you were the only woman left on the planet. I will _kill_ you before I'll ever touch you in any other way."

"Ooooh, threats, yes, I like it. It goes along with the abuse— _and_ it turns me on." She smiles as her arm stops burning and she leans back towards him. As their gazes meet though, she suddenly falters. His eyes—always so expressive, beautiful to the point of stealing a person's breath—show that his words are not just protective barbs he's throwing at her. He means it, and she remembers that moment in the basement at the Boarding House when he turned the blow torch on her. She had felt more threatened in that split second with him than she had when she spent the entire day down there with Stefan months earlier.

She tries not to show that she believes him. "You aren't going to kill me. You need me to keep Klaus from killing your precious Elena."

"Right," he says, turning back to shift the car into gear. "And if you fuck that up, I'll have no need for you."

Katherine jerks as the car pulls forward abruptly. "I won't fuck it up."

"I hope not," he says.

As they drive towards their destination— _their destiny?_ —Katherine ponders the irony of escaping Klaus yet again, only to die at Damon's hand.

Hours later, when his stake pierces her chest, and she knows he never intended to let her live, she can't help the little smile that forms on her lips.

 

++

 

Stefan and Caroline drag Damon into the rundown house where Bonnie's been hiding. (Damon jokingly called it the Vampire Witness Protection Safe House to Jeremy once, who did not share in the laughter. _Whatever,_ he still thinks it's funny.)

"Oh, _shit_ ," he hisses as they unceremoniously drop him on the floor. His leg throbs, but they don't have time to tend to him—there is still a battle royal going on outside, but thanks to Bonnie's witchy powers, the house is impenetrable to anyone not in the Scooby Doo Gang. (This is another joke he's made time and again that has only squeezed a smile out of any of them once. [Caroline.] Well, and Ric, but that's just because they have the same sense of humor. He doesn't get why they can't enjoy the little things. It's all they've got after all.)

"I'll stay here with him," Elena volunteers, and he hadn't even realized she'd followed him and his two _EMTs_. (Man, he's _on fire_ tonight!)

"That's probably for the best, anyway," Stefan says. He and Caroline exchange a look and then he glances back at Damon. Their eyes lock and hold.

Damon nods at his brother. "Yeah, I've got a good twelve hours before I go rabid and start mistaking Elena for Katherine. Who I killed, b.t.w. _You're welcome._ "

He knows it's bad when Stefan just looks pained, he doesn't even have the energy to roll his eyes at Damon's bad jokes.

 _Fuck._

He doesn't have to see his brother's face to know how bad it is. Death for a vampire is permanent. There is no return, not this time. And there is no known cure for a werewolf bite.

Stefan and Caroline hurry out, back to the war waging outside on the old lawn.

"Let me see it," Elena demands and she actually kneels down next to him and finds the hole in his jeans where Klaus's last and completely dick move has torn the material to shreds. She pulls on it and rips a much larger hole so that they can both see the festering wound. "It looks like it's healing," she says.

Damon leans back on the floor, letting his eyes focus on the ceiling overhead. It's funny, he knows his life is ending in a matter of hours, but Elena's fingers are still touching his thigh, and he's having a reaction to it that almost makes the pain bearable. "Yeah, it does that. But it will start looking bad again here in an hour or so. That's about how long before Rose..."

He doesn't finish. They both know all too well what happened to Rose.

"Oh, Damon," she whispers, and he's surprised when he realizes that she's crying, and that she's flung herself across him, burying her face in his chest. Maybe if he weren't dying of a werewolf bite, he would be able to find some snarky thing to say.

But it's Elena, sobbing from the depths of her soul, and all he can do is wrap his hand around the back of her neck to hold her against him. "Hey, hey, it's alright," he says, which, it's not _alright_ , but it's better than the alternative. So he says that. "You didn't want Bonnie to die, and she didn't. Right? Klaus is down, and now Stef and Caroline will get rid of those witches, and everything will be good. Elena. _Elena_. Please. Stop. Just..."

But she doesn't stop, she continues to cry, and Damon's instinct to preserve his emotional distance, which has been crumbling for weeks anyway, goes up in metaphorical flames within his chest.

Because Elena weeps for him. _For him._

And he's not actually dead yet, so he gets to feel it, see it, absorb some of it himself. And, God, he'd give anything for her to not be hurt. He always knew that he'd do whatever he had to in a physical sense, but he never contemplated this aspect. Because this is Stefan's job.

This is the part Stefan does well, right? This is the only part Stefan does, period.

Except for right now. Now, he's cleaning up the mess outside because Damon's fucking dying.

 _Jesus_. How pathetic.

"Listen, listen," he says and he pulls her face close to his own. "Look, baby, this is all going to be fine. You see, because this is the way it was meant to go down." She starts shaking her head, so he brings his other hand up to her face and grabs her head so she can't argue, even silently, with him. "You know, if anyone had to die, aside from the really bad baddies, it was me, Elena. I'm the only one irredeemable. I'm the one with nothing to live for. I'm the one no one will miss when I'm gone."

He's not sure how a person can be so beautiful when they are such a mess, but with tears and snot dripping down her face, Elena manages it. She drags her sleeve across her nose, mopping up most of the moisture and then she pulls away from him, broadening the distance between them so he can't hold on to her anymore.

"That's not true," she says, her voice choked.

 _Oh, but it is._ He sort of realized it as he said it, but it _is_ the truth. He kept her alive, and really that was all that ever mattered to him.

He closes his eyes and relishes his small victory. Of course, he thought he'd get to watch her live that life, in whatever side capacity she granted to him, but that hardly registers anymore. This is better—dying for a cause. _The Cause_ , so many years later, and he can still hear the fervor in his father's voice as it echoes through his mind. This had been his capital "C" cause, and he will become a casualty of war. One hundred and forty six years later, he's finally done what Giuseppe Salvatore wanted him to do.

And he's not even mad about it.

The guy had been a bastard of a man, and he'd treated Damon like shit for something that was not even his fault, but maybe somehow this would make him proud.

He wonders if the infection has already reached his brain, even though his leg actually feels much better. Because these thoughts? _So not him_.

"You should take my blood," Elena gasps, tugging his head into her lap and placing her wrist right in front of his mouth. She yanks up her sleeve and says, "It might help, it might—"

"It won't," he says, grabbing her arm to push it away. "Human blood didn't help Rose, remember? Nothing helped. Nothing _will_ help." He looks up at her and watches while she shakes her head again, maniacally. "Elena! God, could you just, for once, listen to me? Just this once, since I'm, you know, _dying?_ "

She sobs again, and presses her fist to her lips, which at least takes her offering away from his mouth, but he can't help but long for the night Bonnie 'died.' He'd love to go back to her smacking the shit out of him over it as opposed to this uncontrolled reaction.

He really can't make any sense of it.

Maybe it's because she needs him so much that he suddenly feels stronger, but he manages to haul himself up into a sitting position next to her. Wrapping his arm around her shoulders, he says in the kindest voice he can muster, "You've got to get a grip, okay? Get it together, Elena. Everything is fine. This is _fine._ Stop crying!"

"I can't!" she wails and she turns into him, her arms slithering around his back in a hold far tighter than he would expect of her. "This is not what was supposed to happen—you are not supposed to die! This is not—"

He pushes her away and turns their bodies so that he can put his hands on her shoulders. Giving her hard little shake, he whispers, "Stop it!" again only because hysterical Elena is not something he knows what do to with; he's never seen her like this, and something at the back of his mind tells him neither has Stefan.

Her head snaps up and her eyes flash and then she does what he has always been able to count on from her: she starts hitting him, and he starts laughing because it's _so her_. And he loves her, and he only has minutes left, really. Maybe it's enough minutes to add up to multiple hours, but once he starts hallucinating, he'll have to get Stefan— _or more likely, Caroline_ —to stake him, put him out of his misery and make sure that no one gets hurt because of him.

At least, no one _else_.

She only stops hitting him once she's breathing hard. It's been several minutes and he never tried to restrain her or block her, because this is it, his last chance to have anything of her. And the biggest problem he's had with Elena all along: He adores everything she chooses to be, even when she's fucking nuts. Because she is. Look at her—it all started with dating a vampire, but its escalated into battling Originals, offering herself up to save everyone she loves, and now, sitting here crying like she would've if someone as important to her as Bonnie had died.

"Damon—Damon," she whispers and he can feel where her hands have curled into fists in the material of his t-shirt; they unfurl and her fingers press against his chest. "This was never supposed to ha—" she starts to say again, and then she cuts herself off by leaning forward to press her lips to his.

He's pretty sure the only thing he expected less than to die tonight was to get felt up by Elena Gilbert.

Her lips move over his aggressively, messily, and he'd try to be the better man here in this situation and resist, but they all know, he's never been the better man. Even when he wanted to be, even when he meant to be, and right now is neither of those times.

He opens his mouth and her tongue plunges forward only to retreat as though embarrassed by her eagerness. His hands are in her hair and he pulls her closer; she whimpers in that universal-woman way that is the _green light, go_ sound that every man waits for before he makes a move that might get him slapped.

Damon curls his tongue around hers and then tightens one hand in her hair to drag her head back so he can press his lips down the line of her throat. When he can feel her pulse thumping under his tongue, he lets the blood rush into his face and his teeth scrape over her skin and she breathes, "Do it," and he can't—or won't—say no.

Later, he won't be sorry either, not even when Stefan turns eyes on him that drive guilt deep down into his soul.

Because later? He'll still be alive, because Petrova blood heals werewolf bites.

Or so they all believe for a few days.

Elijah, who had been lost in the melee, shows up at the Boarding House as Damon, Elena, and Stefan are uncomfortably trying to work out what has happened between the three of them. (Everyone else is there too, because it seems like everyone has moved into Elena's new home.)

(See, Elena confessed to Stefan that she kissed Damon, and offered her blood not out of any belief that it would help him, but only because she wanted to after Damon magically got better from the wolf bite. It was the only explanation that made any sense to either of them, and he hadn't exactly encouraged her to tell, but he hadn't told her not to, either. He listened to their impassioned conversation from the safety of his bedroom, and it had ended with Stefan asking, "Well, what do you want, Elena?" and Elena answering, "I don't know, Stefan.")

"So, what happened, exactly?" the Original asks, eyeing Damon furtively.

Damon explains all of it with far more patience than he feels and when he gets to the Petrova Blood Save, Elijah starts shaking his head. "No, that's not a property of Doppelganger blood."

"How else do you explain it?" Damon demands, slapping his thigh. "I'm completely healed. I should be _dead_."

Elijah gets that look—the one where they know he's about to divulge a bunch more information that he's conveniently kept from all of them for no good reason. "The only person who can survive a wolf bite is another wolf," he says, and he holds his hand up when Damon's mouth automatically opens in protest. "It's true, believe me or not. But should any of the rest of you get bitten—" he pauses, looking at Stefan and Caroline. "You cannot trust that Elena's blood will save you."

"Damon's not a werewolf," Elena says and she looks at him as if he could possibly be harboring such a secret from all of them. He returns her gaze with an expression that plainly says, _hell no_.

"Damon is a hybrid, like Klaus. We successfully killed Klaus, but we also successfully merged the species. I would guess Damon will have the ability to turn on the next full moon, if he so chooses."

"What?" Damon demands, jumping to his feet.

"I've suspected, as there were similarities in your history to my brother's, that it was possible. And then I heard you were bitten that night and you didn't die, so now I am certain."

"How can Damon be a werewolf?" Stefan asks. "There is nothing in our family history to indicate that we ever had the gene."

Elijah doesn't take his eyes from Damon's as this is put out to the room, but Damon suddenly knows, and somehow so does Elijah; he can see it the other man's eyes.

He picks up the glass of whiskey he'd been sipping from when their guest arrived and throws back the dregs. Then he looks at his brother. "Giuseppe Salvatore wasn't my real father," he says lowly.

The confusion on Stefan's face is almost comical, until Damon sees realization and understanding chase it, as if almost two centuries' worth of mystery has been explained in a split second.

Which, let's face it, is what just happened.

"Then who is?" Stefan asks.

"Was," Damon corrects. He looks at Elijah. "I'd guess a Lockwood, wouldn't you? Those were the only werewolves in the area at the time, just like now."

"Wait," Elena's voice interrupts. "What does that mean, exactly? If Damon's part vampire, _and_ part werewolf, what does that mean?"

Elijah shrugs his shoulders as if he's not unveiling the most preposterous piece of information ever. "I think it means he can procreate, now that the curse has been lifted." He clicks his tongue against his teeth. "It's an awful lot of power for one to wield, especially one as unstable as you." He gives Damon a formal little smile and bows slightly to him. "So, if you do anything I don't like, I'll have to kill you."

"What," Damon scoffs, "you're going to hang out here, and monitor me?"

"Why not? This is a nice little town, and I just spent one thousand years making sure my own brother didn't try to create a race so powerful it could wipe all others from existence. Babysitting you will be child's play in comparison."

Ric snorts from the corner and Damon can't help swiveling around to look at his friend, who is quietly laughing into his fist. Everyone is looking at him, Ric, Jenna, Caroline, Stefan, Elena, Bonnie, Jeremy, and of course, Elijah.

"I promise not to go out impregnating all the women of Mystic Falls," he quips and Elijah's lips quirk into a smile.

"It only takes one," Elijah says.

Damon can't control it, his eyes fall to Elena and she sits up a little straighter in her seat, but she says nothing. (What would she say?) In some other life, he might have joked about a Vampire-Werewolf-Doppelganger composite being the best super hero around, but now that he's on the other side of certain death, and being kissed by Elena, and realizing he actually stands a chance with her, everything is far more serious. He can't make light of things any more.

What's that saying? _Shit just got real?_ Yeah, that one.

And maybe for the first time in, uh, ever, he actually cares.

He swaggers from the room a moment later, completely free of Katherine and brimming with possibilities.


End file.
